Autism Waiver program available for children to get treatment at no cost

The mother of a 9-year-old with autism spent $150,000 during the past year for treatments for her son.

It is too late for Val Welling McFarland and her son, Cal, to get financial help. However, under the new Autism Waiver program that went into effect April 1, young children can receive needed treatment at no cost to parents.

“Not every family of a child with autism can afford such costs,” said Welling McFarland. “Some insurers will provide treatment — called Applied Behavioral Analysis — but not all.”

Autism has reached what some experts say is almost epidemic with 1 in every 88 children being born with the cognitive disorder.

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On April 1, the state of Michigan started an Autism Waiver program that provides treatment at no cost for children diagnosed with autism who are between 18 months and 6 years old. The child, however, must be eligible for Medicaid or MiChild, a low-cost health coverage program for children under the age of 19.

The waiver program provides for the Applied Behavior Analysis, said Frances Groce, a psychologist and autism expert who works at the Macomb-Oakland Regional Center, which has offices in Clinton Township and Auburn Hills.

“It will give the parent of those with autism the opportunity to secure effective treatment that was financially out of reach before. This is time-intensive treatment and involves direct service to a child from a psychologist or parent or other expert.”

The first step in being accepted into the program is receiving a diagnosis of autism. Then the child is given a behavior assessment to determine the child’s needs, she said.

“We use tools to measure the social skills and communication abilities of the child. A lot of the children we originally get can’t attend school so they might, at first, be taught at home,” Groce said. “They still may go to school; but may be sent home early if unable to participate due to a challenging behavior, or only go to school for a partial day.”

There are clinics operated by MORC where “the child with autism can receive treatment without any distractions and there’s one-to-one interaction between the clinician and the child.”

“Once progress is made we go into the child’s home and continue the process so that all the skills learned in the clinics transfer to the home and any other place the child might go,” Groce said.

One part of the process is “gentle teaching” techniques that help develop rapport and trust between the child with autism and the clinician. “Hugs are allowed as are pats on the back as well as verbal encouragement.”

“There’s lots of research that shows these methods are successful in improving someone with autism’s ability to communicate, form relationships and perform activities of daily living,” she said. If the programs are started early enough, some children can be mainstreamed into public/private schools, and don’t need specialized classrooms or supports.”

Jerry Wolffe is the Disability Rights Advocate at MORC. Inc., a nonprofit that serves 5,100 people with disabilities in Macomb, Oakland, and Wayne counties. He can be reached at 586-263-8950.